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THEY WILL CALL HIM IMMANUEL

Matthew 1:22-23

“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’—which means, ‘God with us.’”

Thank God who has been with his people in 2014, who has been living and active, though many times we don’t see or hope for the glory he reveals in and through us. May God bless us to see him in all the work he has done.

I am very thankful for the year 2014 in Cincinnati because as the year went on I could see Immanuel God being revealed in us in so many ways.

Message writing. The main participants in faithful message writing and sharing this year have been Jonas Chen, Andre Atkinson and Bonnie Stewart. But many others have also participated in writing faithfully as well, including Justin Spencer, Caleb Kim and Morgan Miller. It strikes me that each of the messengers has a different quality, but the word of God is living and active in all of them, and among us through their struggles with the word of God in this way. God is raising many messengers of his word—apostles in our times—through their labor in message preparation.

Medical ministry. It seemed that much of the year we just prayed for medical missions in Uganda or North Korea, but without as much active participation. At the same time we have been praying continually for Justin Spencer, Luke Hong and Hannah Hong – so it is also a time of very practical preparation. And we have Hannah Zun, Ruth Kim, Caleb Kim and Rebekah Chen, as well as Bonnie Stewart, all of whom are currently working in the medical field. It seemed that God heard our prayers in every way in 2014. May God bless Justin to get a residency in Cincinnati. May God bless Hannah to finish her time at UC Medical School as a prayer servant and in this way a spiritual leader for her classmates. And may God grant Luke Hong his best blessing when he goes to Sydney, Australia, and raise him there as a servant of the medical ministry and a missionary. God also opened doors at the end of the year through optometry ministry in conjunction with Dr. Holland Kendall. And this can be a way to serve our coworkers in Africa and support them in the gospel work, including Dr. Samuel Yoo and Dr. Luke Lim. I pray that God can continue to give us his leading in how to serve medical missions, and give Missionary Sam Zun his clear vision and direction for serving the mission and especially our coworkers around the world.

Student ministry - Thank God that we could have a student worship service this year. We have been praying for adding ten in this school year. It doesn’t seem like much is happening usually. Plus Jesse Kreuzmann isn’t joining at all any more. But Andre has been faithfully serving the prayer topic even if there are no visible signs, as have Jiyong Atkinson, Bonnie, Luke and Hannah. But Veronica Smith has been coming and growing. She and Morgan recently finished their whole Bible reading. So this is a sign that the student ministry is alive, and that Immanuel God is indeed with the student ministry.

Music ministry – I thank God for Jiyong, who overcame every obstacle and gave her whole heart to serving the music ministry in Cincinnati beginning with this Christmas. It was a very rich worship service because of her. And she helped many non-professional musicians sound like professionals. Most of all I am thankful for this beautiful spark of God’s life in her, to serve our coworkers like this. I pray that Jiyong may complete her DMA in 2015.

JBF/CBF – I began writing CBF and JBF messages in October 2006. It doesn’t seem like it, but that means until 2014 I was doing that. But in 2014 Caleb Kim began as a good shepherd for JBF. Right now that means he became a servant for Stephen and Olivia Miller, and Abraham and Hope Kim. So he gets to serve the teenagers in our ministry, and he is doing so very well, and I think they will train him very well also. Not only JBF, but this year Sarah Miller began to serve the CBF children with God’s word. Right now that means Daniel and Stephen Chen, Charlie Miller, and sometimes even Elizabeth Chen and little Charles Reynolds. Olivia has been staying as her assistant as well, which is really a blessing so that Sarah can be free to serve the passage and children. I pray that God may raise Caleb and Sarah as servants and leaders through this humble shepherding of young students.

Other regional ministries – Thank God who has meant complete healing for Dr. John Doty. It is truly a miracle that he could have a normal heart function. I am thankful for the Lexington ministry. They have been through so much, but I see that young John graduated his college, and now Sam is at Northwestern and it won’t be too long until William is going to college as well. And I like the prayer topic they have – to have God-centered love toward students. Truly their hearts are completely healed in every way. May God bless their ministry. I am also thankful for the Dr. Joe and Younse Wert. They have been faithful to IUS ministry and to co-working, like the Doty’s, to share in the burden and blessing of hosting our Joint Worship services every month. It is the best way to co-work in the word of God and to read the Bible together, even when we are some distance away. May God bless them to be good coworkers for Dr. Josh and Graziella Choo in Louisville, who are also growing in their ministry. I was happy that Dr. Ezra Cho could finish his doctorate and get his first job in Washington DC. God blessed our regional worship services in so many ways. I also pray that this may become a kind of model or template for our coworkers in the Texas ministries and also Pacific Northwest, so that they too can overcome the distances between them by finding a way to cowork in Bible study somehow.

When I consider God’s work in our Cincinnati ministry in 2014 I am reminded of our Matthew study, and of how God worked in history, as Immanuel – God with us. Matthew 1:22-23 says, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’—which means, ‘God with us.’”

First, God fulfills his hope. In history God worked through people like Abraham and David, and according to Matthew even in the time of the exile. That is to say he worked in the ones like Abraham, who never saw with his eyes the things that were promised, but only from a distance. He worked in the hearts of those like David, who was completely encumbered by his own sin, yet trusted in the blessing of God who rules over sin, and chose to entrust himself to the mercy of the very one he sinned against. He worked in the nation of Israel – a nation that seemed to do nothing in its history other than reject their God, even to the point where they experienced severe judgment at his hands and humiliation in the world, where they were known as the people of God. Why did all of these even tragic things take place? What was God doing calling himself by their names – God of Abraham, God of Israel? According to verse 22, all of this – every bit of it – took place to fulfill in every way the word of the Lord. It is the fulfillment of God himself. It is the perfect fulfillment of the revelation of God. He is truly the hope then for all who, like Abraham, fall short of seeing with their eyes his glory. God fulfills it in them. He is the hope of all of those like David, who are also encumbered with their own sins and are powerless against it, yet submit themselves as they are with trust in his mercy, who choose to fall into the hands of God against whom they sin, and God fulfills his word in them. And he is the hope even of those who must be judged completely by God who is perfectly holy. In all these things, and in all history, God is fulfilling, and he is the fulfillment. Taken from this perspective I can see our ministry differently, each struggle, each life in light of our God who is fulfilling his word and his will and himself in each one. God must be fulfilling his hope. It is not easy being in a small ministry that doesn’t seem to grow. Maybe I could hope to turn into Billy Graham, or our ministry become a megachurch. Instead I thank God who is the fulfillment, and is fulfilling all things, in all things, and submit this beautiful ministry to him with that hope, because God is fulfilling his hope in history and in us.

Second, he is Immanuel – God with us. “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’—which means, ‘God with us.’” How did God fulfill all things? He sent Immanuel. He sent Jesus to be God with us. He is God with us by submitting to being born into this world, being tempted, living common life with sinners, ultimately being rejected and crucified at their hands – our hands. He is Immanuel. So when I see the many sufferings and struggles of our coworkers I learn in Matthew 1:23 to see the thing I never see – Immanuel, God with us. That is the truth of Immanuel that is being fulfilled in us. In this way God reveals himself in us. So when Luke Hong had to suffer while waiting to see if he would get into med school somewhere, I learn to see Immanuel, God who bound himself there to be with Luke. When Hannah struggles to be an above average student. Or Dr. John Doty and M. Grace have a literal life and death struggle. Or we have a bedbug problem. In all those things? What I learned to see in the large and small struggles and sufferings is this truth of Jesus, who became Immanuel God with us, who bound himself to us at the cost of his life, just as God of Israel had done in revealing himself and fulfilling all things.

This is our hope, that the one who became so bound to us here, has bound himself to us forever. We have eternal hope in this way – not just an idea, but the constant revelation of God in all of these things of this life. May God bless us to know him as Immanuel.

Prayer and vision for 2015:

Prayer Topics:

1. To support world mission beginning with the Africa medical/dental/optical mission
2. To support South Central region coworkers and co-work in Bible study
3. To add 10 students

Key verse for 2015:

Matthew 22:37-39

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

This is my key verse for 2015, This is my life direction, to learn to love. I have never picked such a key verse before, first because it seems impractical. It is so obviously impossible of attainment. Better for me to have something like, “Leave your country, your people and you father’s household...” That I can measure and have a hope to attain to. But to love the Lord with ALL of anything, when taken in that context, is failure from the outset for me.

Also it is a fearful key verse. From my side it ends in failure. If it is the command of God and I end in failure, that is a fearful thing.

But God gave this command to his people Israel. Because it was possible of attainment for them? No, they were terrible in that context, an idol worshiping people that rejected God the minute they ran out of onions. But to this people, who would definitely fail big-time and unlike me, for the eternal record in the word of God, he gave the command in Deuteronomy 6:5 to love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Then there is Jesus. On the night before he was crucified he told his disciples, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (Jn 13:34) Was this possible of attainment for them? No, and in fact, a few verses later Jesus told Peter, “Before the rooster crows you will disown me three times.” In fact all of the disciples would deny him, one would betray him for a few pieces of silver, and Jesus gave them the new command, which is really an old command, to love.

So the command came to those who could not attain it, and in fact from the beginning, when the first people questioned the love of God in the garden, there began the cascade of failure in this world from that viewpoint. Sin came in and death came in, and there appears to be nobody who loves God or loves others. It became a world without love from that viewpoint.

Is this a world without love? Into this world God has spoken his command of love. From one side it does expose the failure of this world in the light of God’s love. But from God’s side it is not a world without love, for he spoke the word of love without fail into the world. Then there is Jesus. He left his Father’s house, where love reigns, and he came to this world. He came, he lived and he died. But in all those things the one thing he did was love. Jesus loved without fail. So this is not a world without love. It is actually the place where God’s love is revealed in a totally new way. In the place where men have unanimously failed, love never fails.

Here is where I want to meet the truth of love in 2015. I have been guided away from this beautiful verse by my practical understanding of the impossibility of attainment, by my own fear and unwillingness to love – by everything from this side that says that this is a world devoid of love – what we see with our eyes and feel in our hearts and souls and minds when we are empty of God and empty of love, when I surrender to the truth that this is a world without love, without God, without life. So I want to embrace Matthew 22:37-38 in this place. “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’   This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” I want to invite the God of love, the God of Jesus, the God of the kingdom of heaven into my life with this verse. I want to be guided by God—his word, his Son and his love—because I want to see the revelation of love in this place personally beginning in 2015. This verse teaches me that my “problem” is not my failure to love, rather it has been my failure to open my soul, my heart and my mind in the very place of my failure to the truth of God, the truth of love that has sustained me in life and will sustain me in life forever. That is where I catch the glimpse of what it truly is to love, to practice such love.

May God bless 2015 for the revelation of his glory.